Highest-grossing merfolk movie

The highest-grossing movie with traditional fish-tailed merfolk featuring as one or more of its main characters is Stephen Chow’s fantasy adventure film Mei Ren Yu (The Mermaid; China, 2016). It earned a total of $525,018,479 (£368.9 million) at the box office worldwide as confirmed by The Numbers.

This also makes Mei Ren Yu the highest-grossing romantic-comedy film released to date.

The highest-grossing movie to feature a fish-tailed mermaid as a minor character is Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (USA, 2011) with takings of $1,045,713,802 (£677.7 m). By comparison, Disney's iconic animated 1989 feature-length adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid had grossed $222,299,758 (£134.4 m) as of 3 Jan 1998 according to The Numbers.

Aquaman (USA, 2018) performed better than Mei Ren Yu at the box office with a worldwide take of $1,143,758,700 (£869.2 m), however that film has been discounted here as it doesn't focus on traditional merpeople (i.e., half human/half fish) but rather a race of aquatic humanoids without fish tails known as Atlanteans.

Directed, produced and co-written by Stephen Chow, the film stars Lin Yun as a mermaid called Shan who falls in love with businessman and property developer Liu Xuan (played by Deng Chao). The mermaid, who can walk on her fins, is sent to assassinate Xuan, after he acquires the body of water in which her merpeople live and attempts to use sonar to remove all sea life from the ecosystem to facilitate the reclamation of land for development. Following Shan’s failed assassination attempt, the couple fall in love, but various problems ensue as Xuan attempts to cancel his business deal with his partner and ex-girlfriend Li Ruolan (played by Zhang Yuqi). Many merpeople die defending their home, and Shan and Xuan are badly injured by Ruolan’s mercenaries, but the film ends happily with Shan adopting a human persona on land as Xuan’s wife Lucy.

The film engages with contemporary ecological issues, which is reflective of many 21st century uses of the mermaid.